Category Archives: Drew Pomerance

Terminating and/or firing employees is an often dreaded task faced by employers in all industries and lay offs are no different. Unfortunately, at some point in the business life cycle, financial difficulties may mean a business owner needs to lay off employees – and do so in a manner that does not result in legal action by the disgruntled employee.

As we have discussed in previous posts, smartphones are making life a bit more challenging for business owners, especially in terms of overtime pay. It’s a modern reality that today’s workplace is anywhere within range of a wireless signal. With many employees habitually checking their smartphones at all hours for emails, text messages, voicemails, tweets, and other electronic transmissions, more and more employers are finding themselves with a potential wage and hour class action on their hands.

RPNA Partner Drew Pomerance is joining the esteemed Employment Law Panel at CAALA’s Annual Las Vegas Convention on September 1, 2017 at the Wynn Hotel. The expert panel will present hot topics in employment law such as wrongful termination, gender and racial discrimination, equal pay, and whistleblower cases. Mr. Pomerance will be focusing on the latest developments in wage and hour law, including “off-duty” rest breaks, “on-call” meal periods, “call-in” scheduling, and class action waivers. He will also provide an update on PAGA claims and key legislation to watch. Mr. Pomerance is a regular speaker at the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles’ annual conference, touted as the largest convention of trial attorneys in the nation with over 2,800 attendees. For more information about the conference and to register, visit http://caalavegas.org. To learn more about Mr. Pomerance’s practice, click here.

RPNA Partner Drew Pomerance is scheduled to speak on August 29, 2017 at the California HR Conference (CAHR) in Long Beach. As one of the principal attorneys in the landmark Supreme Court decision in Augustus v. ABM, he will be exploring the impact of this ruling on rest break requirements and clarify employers’ obligations to employees. He will also offer the latest strategies employers can use to minimize their exposure to wage and hour litigation and protect themselves from class action suits, which can spiral out of control and result in a huge uninsured risk.

Generally speaking, joint employment, or co-employment, is the sharing of control and supervision of an employee’s activity among two or more business entities. A benefit of the increasingly popular employment practice is the ease with which joint employers are often able to hire experts in niche industries, individuals with specialist skills, and/or even replace their regular workforce. Currently, however, no single legal definition of joint employment exists and Congress is out to change that.

California’s “Day of Rest” statute continues to plague employers, but a recent case brings with it some good news. Under California Labor Code section 550-558.1, an employer is prohibited “from ‘caus[ing] his employees to work more than six days in seven” unless “the total hours of employment do not exceed 30 hours in any week.”[1]

According to a California Supreme Court ruling that just came down the pipe, employees must average no less than one day of rest for every seven over the course of a calendar month, giving even more work-scheduling flexibility to employers.

Employers, beware: New regulations expand existing transgender protections under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). FEHA protects individuals who identify as transgender and provides protections on the basis of both gender identity and gender expression — regardless of the person’s assigned sex at birth. California law also specifically protects an employee’s right to appear or dress consistently with his/her gender identity or gender expression.

The amendments to FEHA became effective July 1, 2017 and specifically address transitioning, dress standard, name preference, identity, and documentation as they relate to the workplace and housing.[1]

Drew Pomerance was named by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journals as one of the top labor & employment lawyers in California. More than 175 lawyers, judges, and in-house counsel from around the state attended the special reception held at The Montage in Beverly Hills on July 18 to honor those selected for this prestigious award.

Are non-compete agreements truly a thing of the past in California? It seems that the California Supreme Court would like employers to think so. After all, in 2008 the Court brought down the hammer on these covenants not to compete (a clause under which one party (usually an employee) agrees not to enter into or start a similar profession or trade in competition against another party (usually the employer)), holding that California Business Code §16600 prohibits all restraints on trade, including non-solicitation provisions (Edwards v. Arthur Anderson, 44 Cal. 4th 937(2008)).